Ive got a crush on Sarah Silverman

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Regent Rigmarole

For those of you who dont know, UBC has several theological schools attached to it. These include Corpus Christy, Vancouver School of Theology, and Regent College. Regent has an extremely large American student population, so was the site of our most recent voter registration drive. Now a school of theology might not seem to be the best Obama recruiting ground, and if this were in the United States, that might even be true. However the theologians here for the most part have a very progressive outlook, and as I was surprised to find out, don't vote on their faith. This came as a slight disappointment, as I spent a few hours last night reading up on Obama's view on faith, as well as the details of Palin's anachronistic interpretation of Paul, and McCain's overly simplistic view of Christianity. We got our foot in the door from one of our members, James (as shown with his beautiful and patriotic daughter), who was working the election booth for the Regent first year representatives next to us. This was my seventh day tabling for the Obama campaign, and I can say without a doubt that this was by far the busiest I have seen it. In a period of about one hour, we had over 25 people register. In total we registered 32 people, almost all of them either leaning towards Obama, or (far more often) extremely excited to vote for him. For most of the time, it was so busy that we actually had to expand to nearby tables, which I claimed in the typical way recognized by international law; by placing an American flag on them. There was one unfortunate moment, when someone came who was quite irate that we had an Obama banner across our table. Apparently he was under the impression that voter registration had to be completely non partisan. However, by that point the table was so crowded that people couldn't actually see it anyhow, so I saw no harm in taking it down.

Ending on the typical happy note that I like to, I now get to introduce to you all the first two UBC Obamanauts, two wonderful women that will be accompanying me to Las Vegas next week to help campaign for Obama, Bridget (left), and Julia (right). I figure I should let them do it in their own words, so without further delay here they are;

Hi, my name is Julia Hoffman, I am 19 years old, and a second year at UBC. I plan to be a geography major, in the new environmental sustainability BA program (a mixture of environmental and humanistic/political geography). I'm from Santa Fe, NM. One of my main concerns is global warming and the environment. Considering the United States emits about 25 percent of the world greenhouse gases, despite being only 5 percent of the world population, things really need to change, and fast. Aside from agreeing with just about everything that Barack Obama stands for, I'm particularly passionate about his policies to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and other Co2(+)-emitting energy sources that cause air pollution and global warming. Studying and living in Canada, I feel isolated from the hustle and bustle going on this election season. I believe that this is a crucial election which could define the way in which the United States is viewed by the rest of the world as well as the course of action in the environment, and I want to help in any way that I can. I recently heard (and don't quote me on this) that those who are only now registering to vote plan to vote for Obama. If that's the case then I plan to register as many people as I possibly can in the short time that I'll be campaigning.

Hi, my name is Bridget Ehrman-Solberg and I am a 19 year old second year student at UBC interested in studying International Relations. I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and continued to live there until the end of high school. Having grown up throughout the Clinton years, I felt and saw the transition into the Bush administration. I am thoroughly fed up with how our country has negatively changed internationally and in our own economy. Barack Obama sends a message of positive change that I believe will allow our country to meet its full potential both at home and on an international level. I am excited to say that this will be the first election that I will cast a vote, not only because I know have a voice that can be heard but because of who I get to vote for.

Clubs Day #1

Today was the beginning of Club Days at UBC, and I have to admit, I have been having a nice big mental countdown for it. The Yanks Anonymous (and unofficially UBC for Change) table was placed in the ballroom. We have been put in the 'political room' with a bunch of really cool neighbors. Right next to us is the Radical Beer Faction, which remind me of a wonderful hybrid of Reed College's quasi communist organization the Reed Kommunal Shit Kollective, and the nationalistic Beer Nation. Across from us (kind of) was the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights group. I will be the first to admit that i do not agree with this group on many (any) things. I find that a large part of their message ignores many of the facts of the Israel/Palestine conflict. These disagreements aside, I would like to commend one of their members, my friend Omar Badi-us Zaman who is one of those rare people who is able to honestly listen to what another person is saying, even if he disagrees, a skill that I often wish I was stronger in. Next to them was the Spartacus student group, to UBC socialist/communist group aka a bunch of raging loonies. These are a group of people who among other things, support Iran's 'right' to nuclear weapons, criticize the Dhali Lama as an imperialist tool, and believe amnesty international is part of some international capitalist conspiracy. I realized while having a conversation with one of them how hard it is to have a discussion when you have absolutely no common ground to begin with. Also nearby were my friends at the Israel Awareness table. It takes a lot of guts for them to do what they do on a Canadian campus, I should know, I have spent the past two years of clubs days sitting there having to deal with the people who have issues with the state of Israel. It was nice to see Paul Curran, Freeman Poritz, and Corey Lerman kickin some tail in debates in many a forum.


The Yanks Anonymous table was pretty fun, as always there was a lot of enthusiasm for Barak Obama. Billy made some awesome new shirts that are going for 20 bucks (they are American apparel and really cool) and you should buy one NOW. I did get to have a wonderful conversation with two women from Washington about why they should vote for Obama. I found that they really didnt respond well to talking about how crazy Palin was, but instead liked they liked how I talked about the inspiration that the Obama campaign has given me, and that his administration will fail without us willing to make contributions to society.

Barack Obama released an amazing video today, and I encourage you all to watch it

Saturday after the fact

I continued my work with newly inspired vigor on Saturday at English Bay to where I was registering voters. I worked with Paul who I had met on Thursday and Amy who is not American, but a big fan of Barack Obama. The day was nowhere near as busy as Thursday, we only registered 15 people, but I got to demo my new fundraising gimmick: Change for Change. We raised about 100 dollars for the trip to Nevada which considering how slow it was, was quite a bit.

The day was quite different from Thursday at UBC. Thursday at UBC was a constantly busy, with a lot of traffic and tons of and tons of Americans needing to register. Saturday on the other hand had relatively low traffic, but spending a sunny day on the beach was anything but a waste. We had a lot of people register, many were first time voters, a lot of whom did not even know they could vote. A shout out to my buddy Tito, whose father turns out (i did not know this) to be from Georgia. The downside was I got to see for the first time a real ugly side to Canadians. I was completely taken back by how some people reacted. When asked "Excuse me, are you by chance an American citizen?" I received more "I hate Americans" than "Why yes, I am". I am not sure why there is so much hatred towards the American people in Vancouver, but I found it quite saddening.

Finaly, on a happy note, Tina is back on SNL with what will probably go down as one of the greatest skits of all time

Nevada begins

Its always nice when you can announce something amazing that you are going to do on your blog, however it appears that I have been scooped on my own story. Last thursday I met Paul Z., a really cool fellow Obama supporter. We were tabling together most of the day for the Democrats Abroad at UBC and we registered almost 100 people to vote for November, it was an amazing experience. He told me how he was going to spend the next two months in Colorado campaigning for Barack Obama and I was inspired. While I wish I could go on a two month adventure like Paul, I decided that day to do my part to help change America. During the day, it came to me to try and organize a trip for American students in British Columbia, many who I am sure feel as guilty as I do for not being able to help much with the campaign, to travel to the swing state of Nevada to volunteer with the Obama campaign.

The state of Nevada has a voter registration deadline of October 6th, meaning the days leading up to that deadline will be extremly frantic. The Obama campaign is in desperate need of volunteers for that time to get out and help rock the vote. My goal is to bring atleast 10 students from UBC, Simon Fraser, and UVic to Las Vegas from October 2nd to October 7th to help with the final push. The logistics are daunting. In the next 17 days, I have to find as many students as I can who can commit to coming, as well as raise as much money as I can to help subsidize the trip. The cost looks like it will be around $350 per person, but I would like to make it under $100, and free to those who need it. I will be posting periodic updates to how this quest is going, and I will need all the luck I can get

Barbara Walters Throws Down

Today on what is typically an 'easy' interview with the ladies of the view, John McCain got blindsided by Barbara Walters, one of the best interviewers in the game. She pressed him on Sarah Palin asking him how exactly she would change washington, being that it wouldnt be the economy or housing. When he responded by saying the democrats, the republicans, and even the independents, Barbara asked "How? What will she do? What is she going to reform specifically, senator?". He answered by talking about how she cut earmarks to her state, and sold off the airplane on EBay during which, Walters interrupted saying "She sold the airplane at a loss".

I guess what this means is we wont be seeing Palin on the view any time soon

Palin joke

Q: Whats the difference between Sarah Palin and a pitbull?
A: A pitbull only needs to be euthinized if they bite someone

I love this man

All Kinds of Awesome